Testing Claims about Large Land Deals in Africa: Findings from a Multi-Country Study

By L. Cotula, Carlos Oya, E. Codjoe, A. Eid, Mark Kakraba-Ampeh, J. Keeley, Admasu Lokaley Kidewa, Melissa Makwarimba, W. Seide, William Ole Nasha and 2 more. 2014

155 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Despite much research on large land deals for plantation agriculture in Africa, reliable data remain elusive, partly because of limited access to information and practical and methodological challenges. International debates are still shaped by misperceptions about how much land is being acquired, where, by whom, how and with what consequences. This article aims empirically to test some common perceptions through an analysis of findings from research conducted in three African countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania. The article presents new evidence on the scale, geography, drivers and features of land deals, relates findings to data from earlier research and international efforts to monitor land deals, and outlines possible ways forward for ongoing monitoring of the deals.

Subfields: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Sociology and Political Science, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d0b33bd4f090c3f388bb1010213fcea7bafb036d

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Citations in the corpus

Agrarian political economy and modern world capitalism: the contributions of food regime analysis (2016, background): “…petty commodity producers, and ‘host’ states, as well as pointing to sweeping exaggeration of the extent and effects of ‘land grabs’ and the evidence used to support it (see, inter alios, Baglioni and Gibbon 2013; Brautigam and Zhang 2013; Edelman 2013; Oya 2013a, 2013b; Cotula et al. 2014).”
Land grabbing, social differentiation, intensified migration and food security in northern Ghana (2017, background): “…transnational corporations and domestic investors are aggressively acquiring African-based farmlands for food, biofuel and mineral extraction (Cotula et al. 2014; Cotula 2013; Kaag and Zoomers 2014; White et al. 2012).1 Some analysts refer to this phenomenon as land grabbing, in part to…”
Plantations, outgrowers and commercial farming in Africa: agricultural commercialisation and implications for agrarian change (2017, background): “With some exceptions, little research and analysis is available on the implications and outcomes of different models of agricultural commercialisation (Cotula et al. 2015; Smalley 2013).”
Large Farm Establishment, Smallholder Productivity, Labor Market Participation, and Resilience: Evidence from Ethiopia (2016, background): “Reasons include competition for productive land (Hall 2011), a failure to adhere to required consultation processes (Nolte and VogetKleschin 2014), and lack of contract disclosure or independent compliance monitoring (Cotula 2014).”